Archive

Quotes

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1515

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

—Hannah Arendt, 1958

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

—John Wilkes Booth, 1865

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

—Vegetius, c. 385

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

—Walter Bagehot, 1863

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

—Horace, c. 8 BC

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

—John Nance Garner, c. 1967

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.

—Arthur Miller, 2001